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Facebook's Android App Can Now Retrieve Data About What Apps You Use
An anonymous reader writes "Facebook on Friday released its Android launcher called Home. The company also updated its Facebook app, adding in new permissions to allow it to collect data about the apps you are running. Facebook has set up Home to interface with the main Facebook app on Android to do all the work. In fact, the main Facebook app features all the required permissions letting the Home app meekly state: 'THIS APPLICATION REQUIRES NO SPECIAL PERMISSIONS TO RUN.'
As such, it’s the Facebook app that’s doing all the information collecting. It’s unclear, however, if it will do so even if Facebook Home is not installed. Facebook may simply be declaring all the permissions the Home launcher requires, meaning the app only starts collecting data if Home asks it to."
It was a mistake to allow apps to declare which access rights they want and then present users with a take-it-or-leave-it choice. While this part in itself is not a bad thing, it should be possible for users to fine-tune the settings once an app is installed and the apps then cope with that. I know there are apps out there that let you do this or similar but it should have been built in from the start. This is the activeX of the 2010s
You buy a device to store your personal data on from a company that collects personal data for a living, and then run an app on it from another company that profits from collecting you data and then are confused when they collect your personal data?
Reposting as me
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
I was actually curious to try Home, but when I saw the new permissions requested by the Facebook base app, I just said 'enough is enough' and deleted it.
I think I'm definitely in the minority, but stuff like this increases that bifurcation of their userbase. I keep a toe in just because I know people that use Facebook as a primary communications tool, but I already log in only in a separate browser from everything else I do just to quarantine it.
I looked over the new permissions being demanded by Facebook for the latest Android app update, and stopped dead at the point when they told me that the app could now "call phone numbers without your intervention." Say WHAT??
I expect Google to have pretty intimate integration into an Android phone. I signed on knowing that. From everything I read Facebook is now looking to pretty much take control of the phone OS, not by developing their own, but by hijacking large swaths of control from Android or the user.
Ultimately though one thing is making me stay away from this update, Facebook Home, and probably Facebook entirely on my phone: the Facebook app has been hands down the worst thing I've installed, and gets more useless with a very upgrade.
Three Squirrels
USE TINFOIL FOR FACEBOOK!!!
Seriously guys. It works pretty well, and it isn't as annoying as the Facebook app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.danvelazco.fbwrapper&hl=en
If an app states it needs permission to do X and Y, it would be rather naive to not assume it will do X and Y.
I'm a little surprised Android hasn't copied iOS's behavior, where it asks the user whether or not to grant permissions to a specific thing (e.g Contacts or Location) at the time the app tries to do so - it just makes sense, and it's not like both OSes haven't copied from each other before. But I suspect Google doesn't really want to remind you of what information each of its apps is accessing, or when.
#DeleteChrome
Want proof that Google, Verizon, etc. are in on the privacy nightmares of Android?
They keep releasing new versions that prevent people (who own their phones) from rooting them to
1) block ads ( from their Google Play store)
2) prevent you from using apps to control permissions (like LBE Privacy Guard that now reboots your phone in an endless loop)
With all the time and effort put into their OS, why have they not allowed users to control permissions on apps in any way, shape, or form? Why? Because they are marketing companies that also sell your data to other companies (including all the top mobile carriers). They make deals with these companies and propagate the problem - turning smart phones into a privacy nightmare. And it's not like the iPhone is any better.
Until people take a stand (and stop being a bunch of apathetic consumers), it's not going to change. People allow themselves to be taken advantage of. It's sad. Most don't even care. They'll happily give Facebook and Google all their information because "they don't have anything to hide" - which we all know is the lamest excuse for apathy possible and is easily dismissed as moronic. And it just keeps getting worse - and now our governments collect this data too.
And what is the effect? People are not getting jobs or losing their jobs due to their Facebook posts. Insurance companies are increasing rates on people who type certain terms into their search engines. And that's just barely getting started!
Wake up, folks!
For example, lots of apps require "Read phone state and identity" which gives the ability to learn not only the phone number, but also whether you are in a call and the number of the other party.
There's a very good reason for media players and games to require this. Knowing whether the user is in a call allows the program to pause itself until the call completes.
I don't laugh at all those future phones sold with this garbage, and with it installed and set up in such a way that you are forbidden from uninstalling it...
I already have problems caused by "stock" programs on my phone that cannot be uninstalled without root access, and I cannot trust going through the process of attempting to gaining root, something that could possibly leave me without a phone. Once this garbage makes its way "stock" onto commercial Android phones in the same way, there will be an even greater need to try to gain root access. I am not looking forward to the day when I have to start doing extra research just to find out if a particular cell phone comes with this Facebook garbage, only to find that they all fucking do and the only possibly way out of it is to risk rooting it.
It's already a bitch doing research for a new phone, given all the variations in (incompatible) Android versions. It's a royal pain in the ass trying to find a phone that doesn't suck in general, and doesn't force the use of a cell service provider that tries its best to fuck you up the ass. The last we need is to add fucking Facebook to the mix. Fuck them.
It should be done by mail/phone with a credit card with credentials mailed to you. It worked very well to keep trolls and spam off of Fidonet and Rime forums and since netmail messages cost a $0.25 so I'd love to get all the spam they could send. ;) BTW netmail was a feature of both those networks and I could send electronic mail all over the world. Both networks were like the internet but far more decentralized.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Android is total spyware anyway - the electronic equivalent of standing on a street corner bent over with your shorts down to your ankles. Enjoy.
I have to say I didn't enjoy my Android phone half as much as your other suggestion.